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Foz Meadows

An Accident of Stars Kindle Edition

by Foz Meadows (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Book I of the Manifold Worlds from Hugo-nominated author Foz Meadows. When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war. There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex'Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest. Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storytellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic. Can one girl - an accidental worldwalker - really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she just die trying?

Length: 442 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled	Language: English

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Review

"An Accident of Stars' interwoven, beautifully rendered cultures are filled with rich details, complex family bonds of all kinds, and deeply layered politics. To enter Kena and the surrounding lands is to be irrevocably and powerfully changed. Foz Meadows has created an epic adventure unlike any I've read before."
- Fran Wilde, Nebula- and Norton-nominated author of Updraft and Cloudbound

"A portal fantasy for grownups, with grit and realism, and characters I loved from the first page."
- Trudi Canavan, author of the Black Magician trilogy

"Fantasy readers who appreciate strong characters and excellent worldbuilding will immerse themselves in this tale."
- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"It's quite lovely... The main strength of this is its cast, which walks off the page - there's characters of all ages, all walks of life and all sexual orientations-and its gut punch ending."
- Aliette de Bodard

"Reminiscent of Ursula K LeGuin, An Accident of Stars will take you to a lush, magical new world."
- Laura Lam

"I very much enjoyed this. The main character falls out of our world into a life-changing adventure, with compelling characters and a fascinating world. I can't wait to read the next book."
- Martha Wells, author of The Books of Raksura

"An Accident of Stars is anchored in dozens of complex women, driven by the rooted, deep relationships they have with each other. It's a wonderful, rich, feminist book, and I loved it."
- B R Sanders, author of Ariah

"This fabulous story bowled me over with a compelling blend of intimacy, danger, twisty politics, believably imperfect characters, and a fascinatingly complex universe."
- Kate Elliott, author of Black Wolves and Cold Magic

"Richly imaginative world building with delightfully complex and diverse characters; a joy to read!"
- Ann Lemay, videogame writer

"This is the portal fantasy I've spent my whole life waiting for."
- Liz Bourke for Tor.com

"So this was basically all the things I'd enjoyed about portal fantasies as a younger reader, with the dubious gifts the suck fairy might have bestowed either questioned or removed."
- Ann Leckie

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Foz Meadows is a genderqueer author, blogger, essayist, reviewer and poet. In 2014, she was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer for her blog, Shattersnipe; she is also a contributing writer for The Huffington Post and Black Gate, and a contributing reviewer for Strange Horizons and Tor.com. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN : B01HGX3LWC
Publisher : Angry Robot (2 August 2016)
Language : English
File size : 2122 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 442 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 340,454 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 6,526 in Epic Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- 10,328 in Epic Fantasy (Books)

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51 ratings

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Raymond LY

A clever and engaging twist on classic fantasy tropes

Reviewed in Australia on 15 May 2017

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I purchased this book after I read an effusive review on Tor.com, and it was indeed as special as the reviewer claimed. It's a neat subversion of standard portal fantasy tropes to have the protagonist be the *second* person to visit the fantasy world, and to have to clean up the first person's mess. Unlike with, say, Lev Grossman's The Magicians, there's nothing snide or nasty about the way Meadows plays with classic fantasy tropes; any it's heart this is a very traditional story about heroes having to band together to overthrow an evil king.

What makes this book such a great read is the amount of effort that Meadows put into building her world. There are more than enough little details, from slang to food to clothing, to make this world feel real. But what really shines is how carefully Meadows seems to have thought through the sociological implications of what makes her world different. It's a matriarchy, and it's more sexually open, but that doesn't mean it's a feminist paradise. The world still has prejudice and injustice and bad people. Meadows has built a world that feels like it developed organically from a different set of base assumptions than our world did; but it's still a world of imperfect humans.

None of that worldbuilding would matter of course if the story and characters weren't great, and they are. The plot moves along at a brisk clip, with just the right balance between action, dialogue, description and exposition. The characters are vivid and differentiated. The main protagonist is easy to sympathise with, and her reactions are believable (which is often a problem in portal fantasies *cough*Thomas Covenant*cough*).

There are a few problems with the book; minor niggles really. There are some egregious cases of infodumping, especially near the start. It's kinda justified in-story, but they still feel like "As you know Bob..." moments. Some of the characters are written to sound much older and MUCH wiser than they are supposed to be. Also, the way Meadows tries to address some problematic tropes and work social justice issues into the dialogue or thoughts is inelegant. All of these problems, especially the last one, are easily to overlook because the book wears it's heart on its sleeve from the first page.

Highly recommended for anyone looking for some classic fantasy adventure in a new and unique world.

2 people found this helpful

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Kelvin de Waele

Excellently accessible portal fantasy

Reviewed in Australia on 27 January 2018

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Very well written, paced and brilliantly told story. Nice to see more Australian SFF and this won’t be my last Foz Meadows read.

One person found this helpful

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Dr Richard C Hall

This book rocks.

Reviewed in Australia on 21 March 2017

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Everyone must read it! Or suffer the consequences. Your FOMO will be palpable. It'll follow you around, and make you miserable.

Read it.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

The character are engaging the world is wonderfully drawn and the story is compelling

Reviewed in Australia on 29 March 2017

This book takes the established premise of a girl from our world travelling into another world and complicates it. The character are engaging the world is wonderfully drawn and the story is compelling. I'm totally hanging out for book 2.

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Webster

Wow! Was not expecting that!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 August 2017

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Foz Meadows proves that their is no more alien a world than the ones found in the human imagination. What a stunning entry for Saffron to have through the portal into the Multiverse and what a shocking ending. This gripping tale has characters that are as ambivalent and amazing as real people in a complex and detailed world, full of clashing cultures, hopes, fears and intrigue. No wonder the younger generation matures so quickly. Gwen is an experienced world walker who is followed through a portal by Saffron, as such she acts both as guide and guardian to the newcomer, but even she cannot predict or control how the story will end. Excellent stuff.
If you like this, try Michelle Sagara 'Cast in...' series -but read in order or it gets too complicated. Also try the excellent P.C. Hodgells' Kencyrath series and you may enjoy some Mercedes Lackey 'Valdemar' stories too. Don't forget the straight classic Andre Norton 'Witchworld', or Marion Zimmer-Bradley 'Darkover' books. For f/f pairings go to the 'Aggar' series of Chris Anne Wolfe, the 'Alsea' series from Fletcher de Lancey or check out the Magdon and Magly pairing, Lise Mc Teague's contributions (start with Depths of Blue) is more f/f sci-fi mil-fic. Whatever you read Enjoy!

2 people found this helpful

Mr Kibbles

All the yes. Buy it.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 February 2017

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Portal fantasies are deeply unfashionable. Or they were - trust Angry Robot to bring them back with a modern, very readable twist.

Foz Meadows' An Accident of Stars drags portal fantasies screaming into the twenty-first century: her young protagonist Saffron is an intelligent and fairly streetwise high-schooler who still struggles with the pressure and bullying of the school system and her classmates, and the sudden appearance of Gwen Vere seems to offer an answer to her problems. Obviously, that's not going to be the case...

There are no easy, pat answers in this book, no safe resolutions. The multiverse is a dangerous place, and both Saffron and the reader learn that by the end of the first part of the book. By the time the final confrontation comes around, it's obvious that not everybody is going to make it out alive, and here Meadows doesn't disappoint, though she also includes an even larger twist and a heartbreaker ending to prove the point that portal fantasies don't require happy endings. Foz Meadows' characters are full of pain and perseverance alike, fully rounded people who you want to read more about almost instantly.

My copy of the book has formatting issues that are a hangover from a virus that affected the final layouts - you'll find a fair few reviews criticising this as though it's the author's fault, but it's more than easy enough to read past these errors so that they don't affect the story itself. There's also criticism that the book is too YA, that it's somehow too diverse, that the differences between the Vekshi and the Kenan races are too black-and-white. As to that last, it's easy to spot that even the characters themselves are puzzled by that - it's clearly a question that Meadows will be returning to later in the series. Too tick-boxy diverse? Uh, no, not from where I'm sitting. Too YA? Oh come on, are you serious? What does that even mean? What's wrong with YA? Have you read it? Sometimes I just despair...

Rant over. Excellent portal fantasy, deserves better formatting (ebook versions are correct, I hear), wonderful cover art that both harks back to the past and drives the modern feel, can't wait for The Braided Path. Buy it.

Greatgreenbird

Portal fantasy? There's a blast from the past...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2017

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My first thought when I started reading An Accident of Stars was this: how long is it since I last read a proper portal fantasy book? It used to be quite a commonality, when I look back to my earlier reading days, that magical doohickey that transported someone from our world into another and into the middle of shenanigans.

Anyway, the premise of An Accident of Stars is that it's possible to travel between worlds in a multiverse and one of our main characters, a teenager called Saffron, ends up following someone through a portal to a place called Kena. The woman she follows, Gwen, previously got involved in a spot of king-making in Kena, only to discover that the man she'd helped take over was not what he seemed to be, and now she's on the run from him and his generally nasty ways. Gwen is involved with a ragtag bunch, mostly people who are refugees or in disgrace for one reason or another, and bad things happen to Saffron almost as soon as she steps foot in Kena.

And then it started heading into three stars territory instead of four because of the amounts of info-dumping that happen along the way, which made the plot drag a bit at times. I think in a month where I'd had more impetus to read stuff, I probably would have given up partway through, so maybe the author got lucky with me in terms of timing? Anyway, there's more portal travel, Saffron and her new friend Zech (whose name I had to just go and check, which isn't a great sign) go through a magical ritual and efforts are made to depose the unworthy king. Zech's actions also cause some future problems, as she makes promises she shouldn't have and I fully expect that to come back and bite everyone in the future.

In some ways, the most interesting thing about the book was about Saffron's plans and thoughts on how to deal with returning home. She's been physically mutilated while in Kena, so it's not like she's going to be able to hide that something bad has happened. So, not a bad book but not as gripping as it probably should have been and I can't say I'll be pre-ordering the inevitable next book in the series (A Tyranny of Queens).

One person found this helpful

S.Angel

Is is possible for a book to be your soulmate?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 February 2017

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I think it is.

Initially this review was just incoherent screaming about how much i love this book, i've trying to translate that for you now:
Everything about An Accident of Stars made me fall in love with it a little more. From the clever, character-and-yet-also-fate-driven plot to writing that described just enough to set the scene clearly without interrupting the momentum of the narrative. Foz Meadows handled violence and fighting very impressively, allowing the world to include a natural amount of violence and yet allowing for mental scaring, for emotional trauma - and most importantly, conversations and time given for healing said wounds. The characters are amazing! Each with their own failings and issues and yet each completely vital to the narrative, and also they are all my favourite children now (yes, especially the ones old enough to be my grandmother). I'm also indescribably grateful for the number of queer characters that are present in this universe and, for how respectfully they were treated, how naturally their lives were included in the narrative.

An Accident of Stars is honestly the best book i've ever read. Does that mean it will be the best one for you too? Not necessarily. But surely it is worth finding out?

Starship Library

The characters were wonderful. The book explored the complexity and bittersweetness of ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2016

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This story did so many things that ticked all of my boxes! It delved into the difficulties of magically learning a language without necessarily having the cultural context for it, which was fascinating. It showed communities of women of all ages, working together – and sometimes against each other – and getting stuff done. It spent time thoughtfully exploring the impact of trauma has, particularly on young people – characters are given lots of space to deal with and begin to recover from their experiences. The worldbuilding was magical. The characters were wonderful. The book explored the complexity and bittersweetness of a life lived between worlds. I’m waiting impatiently for the next book in the series.

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